News

A Toronto City Councillor is moving to ban shark fin in the city as a direct result of a similar by-law recently passed by the City of Brantford. Councillor Glen De Baermaker, a member of Toronto’s Licensing and Standards Committee, said yesterday:

“Brantford is the first municipality in Canada, I say congratulations to them, they did a wonderful thing. I’ll be moving a notice of motion at the June Toronto Council meeting to follow their lead,” in an interview aired Monday evening on Global TV News.

WildAid partner Monterey Bay Aquarium released a poll that found 76% of California voters support making it illegal to sell shark fin soup in the state. The poll found that 70 percent of the 218 Chinese American voters surveyed favored a ban. “Chinese Americans feel no different than the rest of the community,” said Michael Sutton, the Aquarium's Vice-President. “This is a bipartisan issue - men and women, liberals and conservatives, all generations, voice concern for shark finning.”

A Chinese lawmaker has proposed that the country's top legislature ban the trade of shark fin, a high-end delicacy consumed by wealthy people in China and East Asia.

Shark-fin trading generates enormous profits, but encourages overfishing and brutal slaughter of sharks, of which some 30 species are near extinction, said Ding Liguo, deputy to the National People's Congress, the top legislature.

He has filed a formal written proposal to the legislature, together with a dozen of other lawmakers.